Very well said. The fall of the United States follows that pattern. Democrats went from "Asking not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.... to the dependency nation of Reid, Pelosi and Obama.
If that's all they meant, the founders would not have included the words "God" and "Creator." But they did. Because, as you wrote, "had founders intended to mean God they would have surely used the word God. " "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
its funny how all of Stu's b.s. is countered buy the fact that the founders of the United States chose to write Laws of Nature - Natures God and Creator all at the beginning of one of most important documents in history. this drives a rabid atheist to write the most irrational things.
The Source of Law and Order What did America's Founding Fathers mean when they spoke of "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God?" John Locke (1632-1704) was a Christian philosopher who had a great influence in America. He said: [T]he Law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions must . . . be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God. [L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made. Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Bk II sec 135. (quoting Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 1.iii, § 9 ) William Blackstone (1723-1780) was cited more frequently than Locke by America's Founding Fathers. In 1810 Thomas Jefferson wryly commented that American lawyers used Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England with the same dedication and reverence that Muslims used the Koran. Blackstone described the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God in a chapter in his Commentaries entitled, "Of the Nature of Laws in General." An excerpt is found here. Among the highlights: Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. This law of nature, being coeval [existing at the same time - ed.] with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity [happiness]. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. [more] The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court recently had an occasion to describe the influence of Blackstone and further explain the meaning of the phrase "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God": American law derives its principles from the common law of England, clearly explained in Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone. In 1799, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, James Iredell, charged the grand jury of the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania as follows: "[F]or near 30 years [The Commentaries on the Laws of England] has been the manual of almost every student of law in the United States, and its uncommon excellence has also introduced it into the libraries, and often to the favourite reading of private gentlemen; so that [Sir William Blackstone's] views of the subject could scarcely be unknown to those who framed the Amendment to the Constitution, ...." Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, April 11, 1799, Philadelphia, 3 The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, at 347 (Maeva Marcus, ed., Columbia University Press 1990) (emphasis added). Because Blackstone's Commentaries was the manual for law students in the United States during and after the revolutionary period and the drafting of the United States Constitution, we should consider his interpretations of common law not only as influential but also as authoritative for applying the common law today. Blackstone's explanation of the common law is important because of the influence it has had upon the American legal system. In 1993, Justice Antonin Scalia stated: "The conception of the judicial role that [Chief Justice John Marshall] possessed, and that was shared by succeeding generations of American judges until very recent times, took it to be 'the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,' Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803) (emphasis added) -- not what the law shall be. That original and enduring American perception of the judicial role sprang not from the philosophy of Nietzsche but from the jurisprudence of Blackstone, which viewed retroactivity as an inherent characteristic of the judicial power, a power 'not delegated to pronounce a new law, but to maintain and expound the old one.' 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 69 (1765)." Harper v. Virginia Dep't of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86, 107 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring). Natural law forms the basis of the common law. (7) Natural law is the law of nature and of nature's God as understood by men through reason, but aided by direct revelation found in the Holy Scriptures: "The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity." (8) 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries 42. Blackstone's Commentaries explain that because our reason is full of error, the most certain way to ascertain the law of nature is through direct revelation. The ultimate importance of this law and its influence upon our law cannot be understated. "Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. There is, it is true, a great number of indifferent points, in which both the divine law and the natural leave a man at his own liberty; but which are found necessary for the benefit of society to be restrained within certain limits. And herein it is that human laws have their greatest force and efficacy; for, with regard to such points as are not indifferent, human laws are only declaratory of, and act in subordination to, the former." 1 Blackstone, Commentaries 42. There are impeccable American sources for the above proposition. James Wilson, Associate Justice on the first United States Supreme Court and signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, said: "Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine .... Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." James Wilson, "Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation," in 1 The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, 104-06 (Bird Wilson ed., Bronson and Chauncey 1804). John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and coauthor of the Federalist Papers, declared: "[N]o sovereign ought to permit those who are under his Command to violate the precepts of the Law of Nature, which forbids all Injuries ...." "John Jay's Charge to the Grand Jury of the Circuit Court for the District of Virginia, May 22, 1793, Richmond, Virginia." 2 The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, at 386 (Maeva Marcus, ed., Columbia University Press 1988). Our own Declaration of Independence refers to "the laws of nature and of nature's God": "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." (Emphasis added.) It would be an odd logic to assert that the American colonies could use the law of God "to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them," but not to decide the fundamental basis of their laws. http://kevincraig.us/religion/nature.htm
I really find this guys conclusion to be smart.... ----------- continued.... 7. There can be no debate as to the connection between the common law and the natural law. . . . Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray and the entire Court at King's Bench resolved a point of law as follows: "That in this point, as almost in all others, the common law was grounded on the law of God ...." Ratcliff's Case, 76 Eng. Rep. 713, 726 (K.B. 1592). [back] 8. Blackstone indicated that one law was more reliable than the other: "If we could be as certain of the [natural law] as we are of the [revealed law], both would have an equal authority; but, till then, they can never be put in any competition together." 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries 42. [back] When a nation departs from "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," crime obviously goes up, but so does government intrusion, taxation, and violation of God-given rights. We must return to the Founding Principles of America. http://kevincraig.us/religion/nature.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Galileo for example. The bible stop this man's curiosity and knowledge.
Sorry Jem, if America fell or is falling, I haven't felt a thing- then again I'm not hanging out in Detroit either. Lol- maybe, but Republicans also went from "If they can't see the light, make em' feel the heat"..to wondering if storming the lawn with assault rifles could even get them back into the white house.
It wasn't actually the bible or it's teachings that put Galileo on house arrest and attempted to suppress his knowledge of the cosmos, but rather it was the head members of the Italian Catholic Church. These Italians, well, they weren't always the brightest, and we shouldn't forget that in 1979 Pope John Paul II asked that the 1633 conviction be annulled. They admitted their wrong, for not realizing the difference between a scientific question and one of faith. When and How does science repent for its many wrongs to humanity? The Atheist Scientists that rule the world today, have made every attempt possible to suppress religion and it's teachings in all class rooms. When can the world expect its apology from them? So you can say that a group of old gray haired governors of the church in Italy did an injustice to science a few centuries ago, but How does this discredit the teachings of the bible? If someone watches and follows Bill O'rielly goes out to a bar and kills a guy in a bar fight because the guy disagreed with something O'Rielly said- Does this mean we are to blame Bill O'Reilly for the guy's death? Persecutors of religion often overlook the acts of individuals, but instead would rather cast blame on religion itself. This baffles me, because so many who attempt to debase religion and the bible profess to be of scientific faith, which by definition is proposed to exercise the most scrutiny of all.
To start from the premise "people are good" seems to miss the point of inalienable rights. So not all people are moral. What was the point? It is argued inalienable rights are discovered rather than especially man made, concepts deemed not to be contingent but universal and irremovable. That is no reason for them not to exist. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; are you saying no one has enjoyed those and it's pointless owning a right to them, because they may or don't exist?